Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said Thursday he would stand down if he is voted out at polls in April, as he launched his campaign which he is widely expected to win.

"I will leave but by the ballot box," Bashir told a rally in Wad Madani southeast of Khartoum, where he was launching his campaign for the presidential election.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is gearing up for an April election expected to return him to office, said in an interview on Thursday the International Criminal Court and Western powers were "hounding" him.

Indicted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where insurgents rose up in 2003 in an ongoing conflict that has left more than 300,000 dead, Bashir denounced "lies" and "made-up charges" in the Le Monde daily.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Wednesday that two opposition figures detained after they signed an agreement to form an anti-government alliance could be freed if they apologize.

"The release of Farouk Abu Issa and Amin Makki Madani depends on them apologizing for the violations of the criminal law they committed," Bashir said, quoted by the official SUNA news agency.

Sudanese police used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of anti-government demonstrators gathered in a neighborhood of Khartoum on Tuesday for the funeral of an activist, witnesses said.

The protesters assembled in Shajara, a southern suburb of the capital, for the burial of an activist who died after being wounded when police broke up a rally in the area two weeks ago.

A Sudanese judge Monday refused to release on bail two opposition figures detained since December for signing an alliance of anti-government groups, after a prosecutor demanded six charges against them.

The anti-terrorism court denied bail to Farouk Abu Issa and Amin Makki Madani after hearing the prosecutor's case, setting the next hearing for Monday March 2, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the trial.

South Sudan's warring rivals opened the latest round of peace talks Monday to end over 14-months of conflict with negotiators warning it was the "final opportunity" to strike a deal.

Regional bloc IGAD has set a March 5 deadline for President Salva Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar to reach a final peace agreement, but previous deadlines have been repeatedly ignored despite the threat of sanctions.

Campaigning for Sudan's presidential and parliamentary elections starts Tuesday with Omar al-Bashir facing little competition for the presidency, a multi-party boycott and the opposition and press facing mounting repression.

Incumbent Bashir is seeking reelection on April 13 in elections which are expected to extend his rule which began in 1989 when he seized power in an Islamist-backed coup.

Fighting between Sudanese government forces and rebels in parts of Darfur has displaced more than 41,000 people since late December, the United Nations said Thursday.

The announcement came as U.N. and African Union officials held talks with Khartoum over the departure of peacekeepers from the western region.

A British aid worker in war-torn South Sudan was shot dead late Tuesday in the capital Juba, the government said.

The Briton, who was working for the U.S. aid organization the Carter Center, was killed by a gunman who followed him into his compound in Juba, according to presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny.

The United States on Tuesday eased sanctions against Sudan by allowing Americans to send some communications hardware and software, including smartphones, officials said.

The measure, which takes effect Wednesday, also covers computers and related accessories, the U.S. Treasury Department said.